American literature

For other uses, see American literature (disambiguation). the beginning of the 20th century, American novelists
included Edith Wharton (1862–1937), Stephen Crane
(1871–1900), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945), and Jack
American literature is the literature written or produced
in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. London (1876–1916). Experimentation in style and form
is seen in the works of Gertrude Stein (1874–1946).
For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see
Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United American writers expressed disillusionment following
States. During its early history, America was a series of WW I. The stories and novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald
British colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day (1896–1940) capture the mood of the 1920s, and John
United States. Therefore, its literary tradition begins as Dos Passos wrote about the war. Ernest Hemingway
linked to the broader tradition of English literature. How- (1899–1961) became notable for The Sun Also Rises and
ever, unique American characteristics and the breadth of A Farewell to Arms; in 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in
its production usually now cause it to be considered a sep- Literature. William Faulkner (1897–1962) is notable for
arate path and tradition. novels like The Sound and the Fury. American drama at-
The New England colonies were the center of early tained international status only in the 1920s and 1930s,
American literature. The revolutionary period contained with the works of Eugene O'Neill, who won four Pulitzer
political writings by Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin Prizes and the Nobel Prize. In the middle of the 20th
and Thomas Paine. In the post-war period, Thomas Jef- century, American drama was dominated by the work
ferson's United States Declaration of Independence solid- of playwrights Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, as
ified his status as a key American writer. It was in the late well as by the maturation of the American musical.
18th and early 19th centuries that the nation’s first novels
Depression era writers included John Steinbeck (1902–
were published. With the War of 1812 and an increas- 1968), notable for his novel The Grapes of Wrath. Henry
ing desire to produce uniquely American literature and Miller assumed a unique place in American Literature
culture, a number of key new literary figures emerged, in the 1930s when his semi-autobiographical novels were
perhaps most prominently Washington Irving and Edgar banned from the US. From the end of World War II up
Allan Poe. In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) until, roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the
started a movement known as Transcendentalism. Henry publication of some of the most popular works in Amer-
David Thoreau (1817–1862) wrote Walden, which urges ican history such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper
resistance to the dictates of organized society. The politi-
Lee. America’s involvement in World War II influ-
cal conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writings
enced the creation of works such as Norman Mailer's
of William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe in The Naked and the Dead (1948), Joseph Heller's Catch-
her world-famous Uncle Tom’s Cabin. These efforts were 22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse-Five
supported by the continuation of the slave narrative au-(1969). John Updike was notable for his novel Rabbit,
tobiography, of which the best known example from this Run (1960). Philip Roth explores Jewish identity in
period was Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life ofAmerican society. From the early 1970s to the present
Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. day the most important literary movement has been
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) is notable for his postmodernism and the flowering of literature by ethnic
masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, a novel about adul- minority writers.
tery. Hawthorne influenced Herman Melville (1819–
1891) who is notable for the books Moby-Dick and
Billy Budd. America’s two greatest 19th-century poets 1 Colonial literature
were Walt Whitman (1819–1892) and Emily Dickinson
(1830–1886). American poetry reached a peak in the Owing to the large immigration to Boston in the 1630s,
early-to-mid-20th century, with such noted writers as the high articulation of Puritan cultural ideals, and the
Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, early establishment of a college and a printing press in
Hart Crane, and E. E. Cummings. Mark Twain (the Cambridge, the New England colonies have often been
pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835– regarded as the center of early American literature. How-
1910) was the first major American writer to be born ever, the first European settlements in North America had
away from the East Coast. Henry James (1843–1916) been founded elsewhere many years earlier. Towns older
was notable for novels like The Turn of the Screw. At than Boston include the Spanish settlements at Saint Au-

1
2 1 COLONIAL LITERATURE

gustine and Santa Fe, the Dutch settlements at Albany Colony. Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the
and New Amsterdam, as well as the English colony of first years after the Mayflower's arrival. "A modell of
Jamestown in present-day Virginia. During the colonial Christian Charity" by John Winthrop, the first governor
period, the printing press was active in many areas, from of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on the Arbella
Cambridge and Boston to New York, Philadelphia, and (the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet) in 1630. This work
Annapolis. outlined the ideal society he and his followers of sepa-
The dominance of the English language was hardly ratists were about to build in an attempt to realize the
inevitable.[1] The first item printed in Pennsylvania was “Puritan utopia”. Other religiously influenced writers in-
cluded Increase Mather and William Bradford, author of
in German and was the largest book printed in any of the
colonies before the American Revolution.[1] Spanish and the journal published as a History of Plymouth Planta-
tion, 1620–47. Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel
French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions
in the areas that now comprise the United States, and dis- Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation.
And still others, like Thomas Morton, cared little for the
cussions of early American literature commonly include
texts by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Samuel de church; Morton’s The New English Canaan mocked the
religious settlers and declared that the Native Americans
Champlain alongside English language texts by Thomas
Harriot and John Smith. Moreover, we are now aware were actually better people than the British.[2]
of the wealth of oral literary traditions already existing Puritan poetry was highly religious in nature, and one of
on the continent among the numerous different Native the earliest books of poetry published was the Bay Psalm
American groups. Political events, however, would even- Book, a set of translations of the biblical Psalms; how-
tually make English the lingua franca for the colonies at ever, the translators’ intention was not to create great liter-
large as well as the literary language of choice. For in- ature but to create hymns that could be used in worship.[2]
stance, when the English conquered New Amsterdam in Among lyric poets, the most important figures are Anne
1664, they renamed it New York and changed the admin- Bradstreet, who wrote personal poems about her family
istrative language from Dutch to English. and homelife; pastor Edward Taylor, whose best poems,
From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were the Preparatory Meditations, were written to help him
issued from the major printing presses in the American prepare for leading worship; and Michael Wigglesworth,
colonies. This is a small number compared to the output whose best-selling poem, The Day of Doom (1660), de-
of the printers in London at the time. London printers scribes the time of judgment. It was published in the
published materials written by New England authors, so same year that anti-Puritan Charles II was restored to the
British throne. He followed it two years later with God’s
the body of American literature was larger than what was
published in North America. However, printing was es- Controversy With New England. Nicholas Noyes was also
known for his doggerel verse.
tablished in the American colonies before it was allowed
in most of England. In England, restrictive laws had long Other late writings described conflicts and interaction
confined printing to four locations, where the government with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin,
could monitor what was published: London, York, Ox- Alexander Whitaker, John Mason, Benjamin Church, and
ford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ven- Mary Rowlandson. John Eliot translated the Bible into
tured into the modern world earlier than their provincial the Algonquin language.
English counterparts.[1] Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton
Back then, some of the American literature were pam- Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who
phlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God’s
to both a European and colonist audience. Captain John activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan lead-
Smith could be considered the first American author with ers with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-
his works: A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Ac- known works include the Magnalia Christi Americana,
cidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia... (1608) the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Amer-
and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and icana.
the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this manner Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the
included Daniel Denton, Thomas Ash, William Penn,
Great Awakening, a religious revival in the early 18th
George Percy, William Strachey, Daniel Coxe, Gabriel century that asserted strict Calvinism. Other Puritan and
Thomas, and John Lawson.
religious writers include Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shep-
ard, John Wise, and Samuel Willard. Less strict and se-
rious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote a diary
1.1 Topics of early writing revealing the daily life of the late 17th century),[2] and
Sarah Kemble Knight.
The religious disputes that prompted settlement in Amer-
New England was not the only area in the colonies; south-
ica were also topics of early writing. A journal writ-
ern literature is represented by the diary of William Byrd
ten by John Winthrop, The History of New England, dis-
of Virginia, as well as by The History of the Dividing Line,
cussed the religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay
 3

which detailed the expedition to survey the swamp be- hend the universe through the laws of physics as described
tween Virginia and North Carolina but which also com- by Isaac Newton. One of these was Cotton Mather. The
ments on the different lifestyles of the Native Ameri- first book published in North America that promoted
cans and the white settlers in the area.[2] In a similar Newton and natural theology was Mather’s The Christian
book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Geor- Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic,
gia, East and West, William Bartram described in great social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century,
detail the Southern landscape and the Native American called the Enlightenment, impacted the authority of cler-
peoples whom he encountered; Bartram’s book was very gyman and scripture, making way for democratic princi-
popular in Europe, being translated into German, French ples. The increase in population helped account for the
and Dutch.[2] greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life
as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670, the popu-
As the colonies moved towards their break with England,
perhaps one of the most important discussions of Ameri- lation of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000.
Thirty years later it was more than 250,000. By 1760,
can culture and identity came from the French immigrant
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, whose Letters from it reached 1,600,000.[1] The growth of communities and
an American Farmer addresses the question “What is an therefore social life led people to become more interested
American?" by moving between praise for the opportuni- in the progress of individuals and their shared experience
ties and peace offered in the new society and recognition on the colonies. These new ideals are accounted for in the
that the solid life of the farmer must rest uneasily between widespread popularity of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiog-
the oppressive aspects of the urban life (with its luxuries raphy.
built on slavery) and the lawless aspects of the frontier,
where the lack of social structures leads to the loss of
civilized living.[2] 2 Post-independence
This same period saw the birth of African American liter-
ature, through the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and, shortly In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson's United States
after the Revolution, the slave narrative of Olaudah Declaration of Independence, his influence on the United
Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah States Constitution, his autobiography, the Notes on the
Equiano. This era also saw the birth of Native American State of Virginia, and his many letters solidify his spot
literature, through the two published works of Samson as one of the most talented early American writers. The
Occom: A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madi-
Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and son, and John Jay presented a significant historical dis-
Spiritual Songs, “the first Indian best-seller”.[3] cussion of American government organization and repub-
lican values. Fisher Ames, James Otis, and Patrick Henry
are also valued for their political writings and orations.
1.2 Revolutionary period
Much of the early literature of the new nation struggled to
The revolutionary period also contained political writ- find a uniquely American voice in existing literary genre,
ings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams, Josiah and this tendency was also reflected in novels. European
Quincy, John Dickinson, and Joseph Galloway, the last forms and styles were often transferred to new locales and
being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were critics often saw them as inferior.
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin’s Poor
Richard’s Almanac and The Autobiography of Benjamin
Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence
toward the formation of a budding American identity.
3 First American novels
Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis
writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the It was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that the
political tone of the time. nation’s first novels were published. These fictions were
too lengthy to be printed as manuscript or public reading.
During the revolution itself, poems and songs such as Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they
"Yankee Doodle" and "Nathan Hale" were popular. Ma- would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted.
jor satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkin- This was a good bet as literacy rates soared in this period
son. Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the among both men and women. Among the first Ameri-
war’s course. can novels are Thomas Attwood Digges' “Adventures of
During the 18th century, writing shifted focus from the Alonso”, published in London in 1775 and William Hill
Puritanical ideals of Winthrop and Bradford to the power Brown's The Power of Sympathy published in 1791.[1]
of the human mind and rational thought. The belief that Brown’s novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings
human and natural occurrences were messages from God who fell in love without knowing they were related. This
no longer fit with the new human centered world. Many epistolary novel belongs to the Sentimental novel tradi-
intellectuals believed that the human mind could compre- tion, as do the two following.
4 4 UNIQUE AMERICAN STYLE

In the next decade important women writers also pub- Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novel-
lished novels. Susanna Rowson is best known for her ist whose works are still commonly read. He published
novel, Charlotte: A Tale of Truth, published in London Wieland in 1798, and in 1799 published Ormond, Edgar
in 1791.[4] In 1794 the novel was reissued in Philadelphia Huntly, and Arthur Mervyn. These novels are of the
under the title, Charlotte Temple. Charlotte Temple is a Gothic genre.
seduction tale, written in the third person, which warns The first author to be able to support himself through
against listening to the voice of love and counsels resis- the income generated by his publications alone was
tance. In addition to this best selling novel, she wrote nine Washington Irving. He completed his first major book
novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six
in 1809 entitled A History of New-York from the Begin-
textbooks, and countless songs.[4] Reaching more than a ning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.[9]
million and a half readers over a century and a half, Char-
lotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century be- Of the picaresque genre, Hugh Henry Brackenridge pub-
fore Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Although Rowson was lished Modern Chivalry in 1792-1815; Tabitha Gilman
extremely popular in her time and is often acknowledged Tenney wrote Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Ro-
in accounts of the development of the early American mantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina
novel, Charlotte Temple is often criticized as a sentimen- Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wrote The Algerine Captive
tal novel of seduction. in 1797.[7]
Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette: Or, the History Other notable authors include William Gilmore Simms,
of Eliza Wharton was published in 1797 and was also ex- who wrote Martin Faber in 1833, Guy Rivers in 1834,
tremely popular.[5] Told from Foster’s point of view and and The Yemassee in 1835. Lydia Maria Child wrote
based on the real life of Eliza Whitman, this epistolary Hobomok in 1824 and The Rebels in 1825. John Neal
novel is about a woman who is seduced and abandoned. wrote Logan, A Family History in 1822, Rachel Dyer in
Eliza is a “coquette” who is courted by two very different 1828, and The Down-Easters in 1833. Catherine Maria
men: a clergyman who offers her the comfort and regu- Sedgwick wrote A New England Tale in 1822, Redwood
larity of domestic life, and a noted libertine. She fails to in 1824, Hope Leslie in 1827, and The Linwoods in 1835.
choose between them and finds herself single when both James Kirke Paulding wrote The Lion of the West in 1830,
men get married. She eventually yields to the artful liber- The Dutchman’s Fireside in 1831, and Westward Ho! in
tine and gives birth to an illegitimate stillborn child at an 1832. Robert Montgomery Bird wrote Calavar in 1834
inn. The Coquette is praised for its demonstration of this and Nick of the Woods in 1837. James Fenimore Cooper
era’s contradictory ideals of womanhood.[6] was also a notable author best known for his novel, The
Last of the Mohicans written in 1826.[7] George Tucker
produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life
with The Valley of Shenandoah. He followed in 1827
with one of the country’s first science fictions, A Voyage
to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Cus-
toms, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia,
and Other Lunarians.

4 Unique American style

With the War of 1812 and an increasing desire to pro-
duce uniquely American literature and culture, a number
Washington Irving and his friends at Sunnyside of key new literary figures emerged, perhaps most promi-
nently Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James
Both The Coquette and Charlotte Temple are novels that Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving, often
treat the right of women to live as equals as the new demo- considered the first writer to develop a unique Ameri-
cratic experiment. These novels are of the Sentimental can style (although this has been debated) wrote humor-
genre, characterized by overindulgence in emotion, an in- ous works in Salmagundi and the satire A History of New
vitation to listen to the voice of reason against misleading York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Bryant wrote
passions, as well as an optimistic overemphasis on the es- early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved
sential goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is often away from their European origins.
thought to be a reaction against the Calvinistic belief in In 1832, Poe began writing short stories – including "The
the depravity of human nature.[7] While many of these Masque of the Red Death", "The Pit and the Pendulum",
novels were popular, the economic infrastructure of the "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Murders in
time did not allow these writers to make a living through the Rue Morgue" – that explore previously hidden levels
their writing alone.[8] of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction
 5

Edgar Allan Poe.

toward mystery and fantasy. Cooper’s Leatherstocking

Tales about Natty Bumppo (which includes The Last of
the Mohicans) were popular both in the new country and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
abroad.
Humorous writers were also popular and included Seba ley, Orestes Brownson, and Jones Very.[10]
Smith and Benjamin P. Shillaber in New England and Just as one of the great works of the Revolutionary period
Davy Crockett, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Johnson J. was written by a Frenchman, so too was one of the great
Hooper, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, and George Washington works about America from this generation, viz., Alexis de
Harris writing about the American frontier. Tocqueville's two-volume Democracy in America, which
The New England Brahmins were a group of writers con- (like the colonial explorers) described his travels through
nected to Harvard University and its seat in Cambridge, the young country, making observations about the rela-
Massachusetts. The core included James Russell Low- tions between democracy, liberty, equality, individualism
ell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell and community.
Holmes, Sr. The political conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired
In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), an ex- the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and his paper The
minister, published a startling nonfiction work called Na- Liberator, along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and
ture, in which he claimed it was possible to dispense Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous Uncle Tom’s
with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by Cabin. These efforts were supported by the continua-
studying and responding to the natural world. His work tion of the slave narrative autobiography, of which the
influenced not only the writers who gathered around him, best known examples from this period include Frederick
forming a movement known as Transcendentalism, but Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an
also the public, who heard him lecture. American Slave, Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of
Emerson’s most gifted fellow-thinker was perhaps Henry a Slave Girl.
David Thoreau (1817–1862), a resolute nonconformist. At the same time, Native American autobiography devel-
After living mostly by himself for two years in a cabin by ops, most notably in William Apess's A Son of the Forest
a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote Walden, a book-length and George Copway's The Life, History and Travels of
memoir that urges resistance to the meddlesome dictates Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh. Moreover, minority authors were
of organized society. His radical writings express a deep- beginning to publish fiction, as in William Wells Brown's
rooted tendency toward individualism in the American Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter, Frank J. Webb's The
character. Other writers influenced by Transcendental- Garies and Their Friends, Martin Delany's Blake; or, The
ism were Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, George Rip- Huts of America and Harriet E. Wilson's Our Nig as early
6 5 EARLY AMERICAN POETRY

African American novels, and John Rollin Ridge's The and Poe all comprise the Dark Romanticism subgenre of
Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated literature popular during this time.
California Bandit, which is considered the first Native American dramatic literature, by contrast, remained de-
American novel but which also is an early story about pendent on European models, although many playwrights
Mexican American issues. did attempt to apply these forms to American topics and
themes, such as immigrants, westward expansion, tem-
perance, etc. At the same time, American playwrights
created several long-lasting American character types,
especially the “Yankee”, the “Negro” and the “Indian”,
exemplified by the characters of Jonathan, Sambo and
Metamora. In addition, new dramatic forms were created
in the Tom Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel
show. Among the best plays of the period are James Nel-
son Barker's Superstition; or, the Fanatic Father, Anna
Cora Mowatt's Fashion; or, Life in New York, Nathaniel
Bannister's Putnam, the Iron Son of '76, Dion Boucicault's
The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana, and Cornelius Math-
ews's Witchcraft; or, the Martyrs of Salem.

5 Early American poetry

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)

collected some of his stories as Twice-Told Tales, a vol-
ume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne
went on to write full-length “romances”, quasi-allegorical
novels that explore such themes as guilt, pride, and emo-
tional repression in his native New England. His master-
piece, The Scarlet Letter, is the stark drama of a woman
cast out of her community for committing adultery.
Hawthorne’s fiction had a profound impact on his friend
Herman Melville (1819–1891), who first made a name
for himself by turning material from his seafaring days
into exotic and sensational sea narrative novels. Inspired
by Hawthorne’s focus on allegories and dark psychol-
ogy, Melville went on to write romances replete with
philosophical speculation. In Moby-Dick, an adventur-
ous whaling voyage becomes the vehicle for examining
such themes as obsession, the nature of evil, and human
struggle against the elements. Walt Whitman, 1856.

In another fine work, the short novel Billy Budd, Melville See also: American poetry
dramatizes the conflicting claims of duty and compassion
on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books
The Fireside Poets (also known as the Schoolroom or
sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time
Household Poets) were some of America’s first major po-
of his death. He was rediscovered in the early decades of
ets domestically and internationally. They were known
the 20th century. for their poems being easy to memorize due to their gen-
Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, eral adherence to poetic form (standard forms, regular
 7

meter, and rhymed stanzas) and were often recited in Hughes, in addition to many others.
the home (hence the name) as well as in school (such as
"Paul Revere’s Ride"), as well as working with distinctly
American themes, including some political issues such
as abolition. They included Henry Wadsworth Longfel- 6 Realism, Twain and James
low, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier,
James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr..
Longfellow achieved the highest level of acclaim and
is often considered the first internationally acclaimed
American poet, being the first American poet given a bust
in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner.[11]
Walt Whitman(1819–1892) and Emily Dickinson
(1830–1886), two of America’s greatest 19th-century
poets could hardly have been more different in temper-
ament and style. Walt Whitman was a working man,
a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the American
Civil War (1861–1865), and a poetic innovator. His
magnum opus was Leaves of Grass, in which he uses a
free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict
the all-inclusiveness of American democracy. Taking
that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast
range of American experience with himself without
being egotistical. For example, in Song of Myself, the
long, central poem in Leaves of Grass, Whitman writes:
“These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and
lands, they are not original with me ...”
Whitman was also a poet of the body – “the body elec-
tric,” as he called it. In Studies in Classic American Lit-
erature, the English novelist D. H. Lawrence wrote that
Whitman “was the first to smash the old moral conception Mark Twain, 1907.
that the soul of man is something 'superior' and 'above' the
flesh.” Mark Twain (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, 1835–1910) was the first major American
Emily Dickinson , on the other hand, lived the shel-
writer to be born away from the East Coast – in the bor-
tered life of a genteel unmarried woman in small-town
der state of Missouri. His regional masterpieces were the
Amherst, Massachusetts. Within its formal structure, her
memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novels Adventures
poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psy-
of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
chologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional
Twain’s style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the
for its day, and little of it was published during her life-
vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evoca-
time.
tive and irreverently humorous – changed the way Amer-
Many of her poems dwell on death, often with a mis- icans write their language. His characters speak like real
chievous twist. One, "Because I could not stop for people and sound distinctively American, using local di-
Death", begins, “He kindly stopped for me.” The open- alects, newly invented words, and regional accents.
ing of another Dickinson poem toys with her position as a
Other writers interested in regional differences and di-
woman in a male-dominated society and an unrecognized
alect were George W. Cable, Thomas Nelson Page, Joel
poet: “I'm nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody
Chandler Harris, Mary Noailles Murfree (Charles Egbert
too?"
Craddock), Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins Free-
American poetry arguably reached its peak in the early- man, Henry Cuyler Bunner, and William Sydney Porter
to-mid-20th century, with such noted writers as Wallace (O. Henry). A version of local color regionalism that fo-
Stevens and his Harmonium (1923) and The Auroras of cused on minority experiences can be seen in the works
Autumn (1950), T. S. Eliot and his The Waste Land of Charles W. Chesnutt (African American), of María
(1922), Robert Frost and his North of Boston (1914) and Ruiz de Burton, one of the earliest Mexican American
New Hampshire (1923), Hart Crane and his White Build- novelists to write in English, and in the Yiddish-inflected
ings (1926) and the epic cycle, The Bridge (1930), Ezra works of Abraham Cahan.
Pound, William Carlos Williams and his epic poem about
William Dean Howells also represented the realist tra-
his New Jersey hometown, Paterson, Marianne Moore,
dition through his novels, including The Rise of Silas
E. E. Cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Langston
Lapham and his work as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
8 7 BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Henry James (1843–1916) confronted the Old World-

New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Al-
though born in New York City, he spent most of his adult
years in England. Many of his novels center on Amer-
icans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate,
highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional and
psychological nuance, James’s fiction can be daunting.
Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy
Miller, about an enchanting American girl in Europe, and
The Turn of the Screw, an enigmatic ghost story.
Realism also influenced American drama of the period,
in part through the works of Howells but also through the
works of such Europeans as Ibsen and Zola. Although
realism was most influential in terms of set design and
staging—audiences loved the special effects offered up
by the popular melodramas—and in the growth of local
color plays, it also showed up in the more subdued, less
romantic tone that reflected the effects of the Civil War
and continued social turmoil on the American psyche.
The most ambitious attempt at bringing modern real-
ism into the drama was James Herne's Margaret Fleming,
which addressed issues of social determinism through re-
alistic dialogue, psychological insight and symbolism; the
play was not a success, as critics and audiences alike felt
it dwelt too much on unseemly topics and included im-
proper scenes, such as the main character nursing her hus-
band’s illegitimate child onstage.

7 Beginning of the 20th century Ernest Hemingway in World War I uniform.

At the beginning of the 20th century, American novel-

ists were expanding fiction’s social spectrum to encom- tic critics, including Ida M. Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens
pass both high and low life and sometimes connected to were labeled The Muckrakers. Henry Brooks Adams' lit-
the naturalist school of realism. In her stories and novels, erate autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams also
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) scrutinized the upper-class, depicted a stinging description of the education system
Eastern-seaboard society in which she had grown up. One and modern life.
of her finest books, The Age of Innocence, centers on a Race was a common issue as well, as seen in the work
man who chooses to marry a conventional, socially ac- of Pauline Hopkins, an African-American woman who
ceptable woman rather than a fascinating outsider. published five influential works from 1900 to 1903 dis-
At about the same time, Stephen Crane (1871–1900), cussing racial and sexual inequalities. Similarly, Sui Sin
best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Far wrote about Chinese-American experiences, Maria
Courage, depicted the life of New York City prostitutes Cristina Mena wrote about Mexican-American experi-
in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. And in Sister Car- ences, and Zitkala-Sa wrote about Native American ex-
rie, Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) portrayed a country periences.
girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman.
Hamlin Garland and Frank Norris wrote about the prob-
lems of American farmers and other social issues from a 7.1 1920s
naturalist perspective.
More directly political writings discussed social issues The 1920s Brought in effervescence of American liter-
and power of corporations. Some like Edward Bel- ature, both in the states and in Paris and London. Many
lamy in Looking Backward outlined other possible po- writers had direct experience [12]
of the World War, and used
litical and social frameworks. Upton Sinclair, most fa- it to frame their writings.
mous for his muck-raking novel The Jungle, advocated Experimentation in style and form soon joined the new
socialism. Other political writers of the period included freedom in subject matter. In 1909, Gertrude Stein
Edwin Markham, William Vaughn Moody. Journalis- (1874–1946), by then an expatriate in Paris, published
 9

Three Lives, an innovative work of fiction influenced by

her familiarity with cubism, jazz, and other movements
in contemporary art and music. Stein labeled a group of
American literary notables who lived in Paris in the 1920s
and 1930s as the "Lost Generation".
The poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972) was born in Idaho
but spent much of his adult life in Europe. His work
is complex, sometimes obscure, with multiple references
to other art forms and to a vast range of literature, both
Western and Eastern.[13] He influenced many other po-
ets, notably T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), another expatriate.
Eliot wrote spare, cerebral poetry, carried by a dense
structure of symbols. In The Waste Land, he embod-
ied a jaundiced vision of post–World War I society in
fragmented, haunted images. Like Pound’s, Eliot’s po-
etry could be highly allusive, and some editions of The
Waste Land come with footnotes supplied by the poet. In
1948, Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature.[14]
Stein, Pound and Eliot, along with Henry James before
them, demonstrate the growth of an international per-
spective in American literature, and not simply because
they spend long periods of time overseas. American writ-
ers had long looked to European models for inspiration,
but whereas the literary breakthroughs of the mid-19th
century came from finding distinctly American styles and
themes, writers from this period were finding ways of F. Scott Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl van Vechten, 1937.
contributing to a flourishing international literary scene,
not as imitators but as equals. Something similar was
happening back in the States, as Jewish writers (such as novels; in 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.[17]
Abraham Cahan) used the English language to reach an William Faulkner (1897–1962) won the Nobel Prize in
international Jewish audience. 1949: . Faulkner encompassed an enormous range of
American writers also expressed the disillusionment fol- humanity in Yoknapatawpha County, a Mississippian re-
lowing upon the war. The stories and novels of F. Scott gion of his own invention. He recorded his characters’
Fitzgerald (1896–1940) capture the restless, pleasure- seemingly unedited ramblings in order to represent their
hungry, defiant mood of the 1920s. Fitzgerald’s charac- inner states, a technique called "stream of consciousness".
teristic theme, expressed poignantly in The Great Gatsby, (In fact, these passages are carefully crafted, and their
is the tendency of youth’s golden dreams to dissolve in seemingly chaotic structure conceals multiple layers of
failure and disappointment. Fitzgerald also elucidates meaning.) He also jumbled time sequences to show how
the collapse of some key American Ideals, such as lib- the past – especially the slave-holding era of the Deep
erty, social unity, good governance and peace, features South – endures in the present. Among his great works
which were severely threatened by the pressures of mod- are Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, The Sound and
ern early 20th century society.[15] Sinclair Lewis and the Fury, and Light in August.[18]
Sherwood Anderson also wrote novels with critical de-
pictions of American life. John Dos Passos wrote about
the war and also the U.S.A. trilogy which extended into
the Depression.[16]
8 The rise of American drama
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) saw violence and death
See also: Theater of the United States
first-hand as an ambulance driver in World War I, and the
carnage persuaded him that abstract language was mostly
empty and misleading. He cut out unnecessary words Although the United States’ theatrical tradition can be
from his writing, simplified the sentence structure, and traced back to the arrival of Lewis Hallam's troupe in the
concentrated on concrete objects and actions. He ad- mid-18th century and was very active in the 19th cen-
hered to a moral code that emphasized grace under pres- tury, as seen by the popularity of minstrel shows and of
sure, and his protagonists were strong, silent men who adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, American drama at-
often dealt awkwardly with women. The Sun Also Rises tained international status only in the 1920s and 1930s,
and A Farewell to Arms are generally considered his best with the works of Eugene O'Neill, who won four Pulitzer
Prizes and the Nobel Prize.
10 10 POST–WORLD WAR II

In the middle of the 20th century, American drama 10 Post–World War II

was dominated by the work of playwrights Tennessee
Williams and Arthur Miller, as well as by the matura-
tion of the American musical, which had found a way
10.1 The postwar novel
to integrate script, music and dance in such works as
Oklahoma! and West Side Story. Later American play-
wrights of importance include Edward Albee, Sam Shep-
ard, David Mamet, August Wilson and Tony Kushner.

9 Depression-era literature

Depression era literature was blunt and direct in its so-

cial criticism. John Steinbeck (1902–1968) was born
in Salinas, California, where he set many of his stories.
His style was simple and evocative, winning him the fa-
vor of the readers but not of the critics. Steinbeck often
wrote about poor, working-class people and their strug-
gle to lead a decent and honest life. The Grapes of Wrath,
considered his masterpiece, is a strong, socially-oriented
novel that tells the story of the Joads, a poor family from
Oklahoma and their journey to California in search of a
better life.
Other popular novels include Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and
Men, Cannery Row, and East of Eden. He was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. Steinbeck’s con-
temporary, Nathanael West's two most famous short nov-
els, Miss Lonelyhearts, which plumbs the life of its epony- Norman Mailer, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948.
mous antihero, a reluctant (and, to comic effect, male)
advice columnist, and the effects the tragic letters exert The period in time from the end of World War II up until,
on it, and The Day of the Locust, which introduces a cast roughly, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the publica-
of Hollywood stereotypes and explores the ironies of the tion of some of the most popular works in American his-
movies, have come to be avowed classics of American tory such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The
literature. last few of the more realistic modernists along with the
In non-fiction, James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous wildly Romantic beatniks largely dominated the period,
while the direct respondents to America’s involvement in
Men observes and depicts the lives of three struggling
tenant-farming families in Alabama in 1936. Combin- World War II contributed in their notable influence.
ing factual reportage with passages of literary complexity Though born in Canada, Chicago-raised Saul Bellow
and poetic beauty, Agee presented a complete picture, would become one of the most influential novelists in
an accurate, minutely detailed report of what he had seen America in the decades directly following World War II.
coupled with insight into his feelings about the experience In works like The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog,
and the difficulties of capturing it for a broad audience. Bellow painted vivid portraits of the American city and
In doing so, he created an enduring portrait of a nearly the distinctive characters that peopled it. Bellow went on
invisible segment of the American population. to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976.
Henry Miller assumed a unique place in American Liter- From J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories and The Catcher in the
ature in the 1930s when his semi-autobiographical nov- Rye to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, the perceived madness
els, written and published in Paris, were banned from the of the state of affairs in America was brought to the fore-
US. Although his major works, including Tropic of Can- front of the nation’s literary expression. Immigrant au-
cer and Black Spring, would not be free of the label of thors such as Vladimir Nabokov, with Lolita, forged on
obscenity until 1962, their themes and stylistic innova- with the theme, and, at almost the same time, the beatniks
tions had already exerted a major influence on succeed- took a concerted step away from their Lost Generation
ing generations of American writers, and paved the way predecessors, developing a style and tone of their own
for sexually frank 1960s novels by John Updike, Philip by drawing on Eastern theology and experimenting with
Roth, Gore Vidal, John Rechy and William Styron. recreational drugs.
10.1 The postwar novel 11

The poetry and fiction of the "Beat Generation", largely broke new ground on its release in its characterization and
born of a circle of intellects formed in New York City detail of the American middle class and frank discussion
around Columbia University and established more offi- of taboo topics such as adultery. Notable among Up-
cially some time later in San Francisco, came of age. The dike’s characteristic innovations was his use of present-
term Beat referred, all at the same time, to the counter- tense narration, his rich, stylized language, and his atten-
cultural rhythm of the Jazz scene, to a sense of rebellion tion to sensual detail. His work is also deeply imbued with
regarding the conservative stress of post-war society, and Christian themes. The two final installments of the Rab-
to an interest in new forms of spiritual experience throughbit series, Rabbit is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990),
drugs, alcohol, philosophy, and religion, and specifically were both awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other
through Zen Buddhism. notable works include the Henry Bech novels (1970–98),
The Witches of Eastwick (1984), Roger’s Version (1986)
Allen Ginsberg set the tone of the movement in his poem
Howl, a Whitmanesque work that began: “I saw the best and In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996), which literary critic
Michiko Kakutani called “arguably his finest.”[20]
minds of my generation destroyed by madness...” Among
the most representative achievements of the Beats in the Frequently linked with Updike is the novelist Philip Roth.
novel are Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), the chron- Roth vigorously explores Jewish identity in American so-
icle of a soul-searching travel through the continent, and ciety, especially in the postwar era and the early 21st
William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959), a more ex- century. Frequently set in Newark, New Jersey, Roth’s
perimental work structured as a series of vignettes relat- work is known to be highly autobiographical, and many of
ing, among other things, the narrator’s travels and exper- Roth’s main characters, most famously the Jewish novelist
iments with hard drugs. Nathan Zuckerman, are thought to be alter egos of Roth.
Regarding the war novel specifically, there was a liter- With these techniques, and armed with his articulate and
ary explosion in America during the post–World War II fast-paced style, Roth explores the distinction between re-
era. Some of the best known of the works produced in- ality and fiction in literature while provocatively examin-
cluded Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (1948), ing American culture. His most famous work includes
Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s the Zuckerman novels, the controversial Portnoy’s Com-
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). The Moviegoer (1962), by plaint (1969), and Goodbye, Columbus (1959). Among
Southern author Walker Percy, winner of the National the most decorated American writers of his generation,
Book Award, was his attempt at exploring “the disloca- he has won every major American literary award, includ-
tion of man in the modern age.”[19] ing the Pulitzer Prize for his major novel American Pas-
toral (1997).
In the realm of African-American literature, Ralph Elli-
son's 1952 novel Invisible Man was instantly recognized
as among the most powerful and important works of
the immediate post-war years. The story of a black
Underground Man in the urban north, the novel laid bare
the often repressed racial tension that still prevailed while
also succeeding as an existential character study. Richard
Wright was catapulted to fame by the publication in sub-
sequent years of his now widely studied short story, "The
Man Who Was Almost a Man" (1939), and his contro-
versial second novel, Native Son (1940), and his legacy
was cemented by the 1945 publication of Black Boy, a
work in which Wright drew on his childhood and mostly
autodidactic education in the segregated South, fictional-
izing and exaggerating some elements as he saw fit. Be-
cause of its polemical themes and Wright’s involvement
with the Communist Party, the novel’s final part, “Amer-
ican Hunger,” was not published until 1977.
Perhaps the most ambitious and challenging post-war
John Updike American novelist was William Gaddis, whose uncom-
promising, satiric, and gargantuan novels, such as The
In contrast, John Updike approached American life from Recognitions (1955) and J R (1975) are presented largely
a more reflective but no less subversive perspective. His in terms of unattributed dialog that requires almost un-
1960 novel Rabbit, Run, the first of four chronicling the exampled reader participation. Gaddis’s primary themes
rising and falling fortunes of Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom include forgery, capitalism, religious zealotry, and the le-
over the course of four decades against the backdrop of gal system, constituting a sustained polyphonic critique
the major events of the second half of the 20th century, of the chaos and chicanery of modern American life.
12 11 CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE

Gaddis’s work, though largely ignored for years, antici- In addition, in this same period the confessional, whose
pated and influenced the development of such ambitious origin is often traced to the publication in 1959 of Robert
“postmodern” fiction writers as Thomas Pynchon, Joseph Lowell's Life Studies,[21] and beat schools of poetry en-
McElroy, and Don DeLillo. Another neglected and chal- joyed popular and academic success, producing such
lenging postwar American novelist, albeit one who wrote widely anthologized voices as Allen Ginsberg, Charles
much shorter works, was John Hawkes, whose often Bukowski, Gary Snyder, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath,
surreal, visionary fiction addresses themes of violence among many others.
and eroticism and experiments audaciously with narra-
tive voice and style. Among his most important works is
the short nightmarish novel The Lime Twig (1961).
11 Contemporary American litera-
ture
10.2 Short fiction and poetry
Though its exact parameters remain debatable, from
In the postwar period, the art of the short story again
flourished. Among its most respected practitioners was the early 1970s to the present day the most salient
Flannery O'Connor (b. March 25, 1925 in Georgia – d. literary movement has been postmodernism. Thomas
August 3, 1964 in Georgia), who renewed the fascination Pynchon, a seminal practitioner of the form, drew in
of such giants as Faulkner and Twain with the American his work on modernist fixtures such as temporal dis-
south, developing a distinctive Southern gothic esthetic tortion, unreliable narrators, and internal monologue
wherein characters acted at one level as people and at an- and coupled them with distinctly postmodern techniques
other as symbols. A devout Catholic, O'Connor often such as metafiction, ideogrammatic characterization, un-
imbued her stories, among them the widely studied "A realistic names (Oedipa Maas, Benny Profane, etc.),
Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Everything That Rises absurdist plot elements and hyperbolic humor, deliber-
Must Converge", and two novels, Wise Blood (1952); ate use of anachronisms and archaisms, a strong focus
The Violent Bear It Away (1960), with deeply religious on postcolonial themes, and a subversive commingling
themes, focusing particularly on the search for truth and of high and low culture. In 1973, he published Gravity’s
religious skepticism against the backdrop of the nuclear Rainbow, a leading work in this genre, which won the
age. Other important practitioners of the form include National Book Award and was unanimously nominated
Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, John Cheever, for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction that year. His other ma-
Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, and the more experi- jor works include his debut, V. (1963), The Crying of Lot
mental Donald Barthelme. 49 (1966), Mason & Dixon (1997), and Against the Day
(2006).
Among the most respected of the postwar American po-
Toni Morrison, the most recent American recipient of the
ets are John Ashbery, the key figure of the surrealis-
tic New York School of poetry, and his celebrated Self- Nobel Prize for Literature, writing in a distinctive lyri-
cal prose style, published her controversial debut novel,
portrait in a Convex Mirror (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry,
1976); Elizabeth Bishop and her North & South (Pulitzer The Bluest Eye, to widespread critical acclaim in 1970.
Prize for Poetry, 1956) and “Geography III” (National Coming on the heels of the signing of the Civil Rights
Book Award, 1970); Richard Wilbur and his Things of Act of 1965, the novel, widely studied in American
This World, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the schools, includes an elaborate description of incestuous
National Book Award for Poetry in 1957; John Berry- rape and explores the conventions of beauty established
man and his The Dream Songs, (Pulitzer Prize for Po- by a historically racist society, painting a portrait of
etry, 1964, National Book Award, 1968); A.R. Ammons, a self-immolating black family in search of beauty in
whose Collected Poems 1951-1971 won a National Book whiteness. Since then, Morrison has experimented with
Award in 1973 and whose long poem Garbage earned him lyric fantasy, as in her two best-known later works, Song
another in 1993; Theodore Roethke and his The Waking of Solomon (1977) and Beloved (1987), for which she
(Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1954); James Merrill and his was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; along these
epic poem of communication with the dead, The Chang- lines, critic Harold Bloom has drawn favorable compar-
ing Light at Sandover (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1977); isons to Virginia Woolf,[22] and the Nobel committee
Louise Glück for her The Wild Iris (Pulitzer Prize for Po- to “Faulkner and to the Latin American tradition [of
etry, 1993); W.S. Merwin for his The Carrier of Lad- magical realism].”[23] Beloved was chosen in a 2006 sur-
ders (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1971) and The Shadow vey conducted by the New York Times as the most impor-
of Sirius (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 2009); Mark Strand tant work of fiction of the last 25 years.[24]
for Blizzard of One (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1999); Writing in a lyrical, flowing style that eschews ex-
Robert Hass for his Time and Materials, which won both cessive use of the comma and semicolon, recalling
the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for Poetry William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway in equal mea-
in 2008 and 2007 respectively; and Rita Dove for her sure, Cormac McCarthy's body of work seizes on the lit-
Thomas and Beulah (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1987). erary traditions of several regions of the United States
 13

and spans multiple genres. He writes in the Southern Seizing on the distinctly postmodern techniques of
Gothic aesthetic in his distinctly Faulknerian 1965 de- digression, narrative fragmentation and elaborate
but, The Orchard Keeper, and Suttree (1979); in the Epic symbolism, and strongly influenced by the works of
Western tradition, with grotesquely drawn characters Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace began his
and symbolic narrative turns reminiscent of Melville, in writing career with The Broom of the System, published
Blood Meridian (1985), which Harold Bloom styled “the to moderate acclaim in 1987. His second novel, Infinite
greatest single book since Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying,” Jest (1997), a futuristic portrait of America and a playful
calling the character of Judge Holden “short of Moby critique of the media-saturated nature of American
Dick, the most monstrous apparition in all of Ameri- life, has been consistently ranked among the most
can literature";[25] in a much more pastoral tone in his important works of the 20th century,[27] and his final
celebrated Border Trilogy (1992–98) of bildungsromans, novel, unfinished at the time of his death, The Pale
including All the Pretty Horses (1992), winner of the King (2011), has garnered much praise and attention. In
National Book Award; and in the post-apocalyptic genre addition to his novels, he also authored three acclaimed
in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road (2007). His nov- short story collections: Girl with Curious Hair (1989),
els are noted for achieving both commercial and critical Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) and Oblivion:
success, several of his works having been adapted to film. Stories (2004).
Don DeLillo, who rose to literary prominence with the Jonathan Franzen, Wallace’s friend and contemporary,
publication of his 1985 novel, White Noise, a work rose to prominence after the 2001 publication of his
broaching the subjects of death and consumerism and National Book Award-winning third novel, The Correc-
doubling as a piece of comic social criticism, began his tions. He began his writing career in 1988 with the well-
writing career in 1971 with Americana. He is listed by received The Twenty-Seventh City, a novel centering on
Harold Bloom as being among the preeminent contem- his native St. Louis, but did not gain national attention
porary American writers, in the company of such fig- until the publication of his essay, “Perchance to Dream,”
ures as Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, and Thomas in Harper’s Magazine, discussing the cultural role of the
Pynchon.[26] His 1997 novel Underworld, a gargantuan writer in the new millennium through the prism of his own
work chronicling American life through and immedi- frustrations. The Corrections, a tragicomedy about the
ately after the Cold War and examining with equal depth disintegrating Lambert family, has been called “the lit-
subjects as various as baseball and nuclear weapons, is erary phenomenon of [its] decade”[28] and was ranked as
generally agreed upon to be his masterpiece and was one of the greatest novels of the past century.[27] In 2010,
the runner-up in a survey asking writers to identify the he published Freedom to great critical acclaim.[28][29][30]
most important work of fiction of the last 25 years.[24] Other notable writers at the turn of the century in-
Among his other important novels are Libra (1988), Mao
clude Michael Chabon, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning The
II (1991) and Falling Man (2007). Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) tells the
story of two friends, Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, as they
rise through the ranks of the comics industry in its hey-
day; Denis Johnson, whose 2007 novel Tree of Smoke
about falsified intelligence during Vietnam both won the
National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction and was called by critic Michiko Kaku-
tani “one of the classic works of literature produced by
[the Vietnam War]";[31] and Louise Erdrich, whose 2008
novel The Plague of Doves, a distinctly Faulknerian, poly-
phonic examination of the tribal experience set against
the backdrop of murder in the fictional town of Pluto,
North Dakota, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize,
and her 2012 novel The Round House, which builds on
the same themes, was awarded the 2012 National Book
Award.[32]

12 Minority literatures
One of the key developments in late-20th-century Amer-
ican literature was the rise to prominence of literature
written by and about ethnic minorities beyond African
Americans and Jewish Americans, who had already es-
Jonathan Franzen at the 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival. tablished their literary inheritances. This development
14 13 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE WINNERS (AMERICAN AUTHORS)

came alongside the growth of the Civil Rights move- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his 2007 novel The Brief
ments and its corollary, the Ethnic Pride movement, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which tells the story of an
which led to the creation of Ethnic Studies programs in overweight Dominican boy growing up as a social out-
most major universities. These programs helped estab- cast in Paterson, New Jersey. Another Dominican author,
lish the new ethnic literature as worthy objects of aca- Julia Alvarez, is well known for How the García Girls Lost
demic study, alongside such other new areas of literary Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies. Cuban
study as women’s literature, gay and lesbian literature, American author Oscar Hijuelos won a Pulitzer for The
working-class literature, postcolonial literature, and the Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, and Cristina García
rise of literary theory as a key component of academic received acclaim for Dreaming in Cuban.
literary study. Celebrated Puerto Rican novelists who write in English
After being relegated to cookbooks and autobiographies and Spanish include Giannina Braschi, author of the
for most of the 20th century, Asian American litera- Spanglish classic Yo-Yo Boing! and Rosario Ferré, best
ture achieved widespread notice through Maxine Hong known for “Eccentric Neighborhoods”[33][34] Puerto Rico
Kingston's fictional memoir, The Woman Warrior (1976), has also produced important playwrights such as René
and her novels China Men (1980) and Tripmaster Mon- Marqués, Luis Rafael Sánchez, and José Rivera and New
key: His Fake Book. Chinese-American author Ha Jin in York based poets such as Julia de Burgos, Giannina
1999 won the National Book Award for his second novel, Braschi and Pedro Pietri, as well as various members of
Waiting, about a Chinese soldier in the Revolutionary the Nuyorican Poets Café.[34]
Army who has to wait 18 years to divorce his wife for Spurred by the success of N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer
another woman, all the while having to worry about per- Prize–winning House Made of Dawn, Native American
secution for his protracted affair, and twice won the literature showed explosive growth during this period,
PEN/Faulkner Award, in 2000 for Waiting and in 2005 known as the Native American Renaissance, through
for War Trash. such novelists as Leslie Marmon Silko (e.g., Ceremony),
Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Gerald Vizenor (e.g., Bearheart: The Heirship Chroni-
Prize for Fiction for her debut collection of short stories, cles and numerous essays on Native American literature),
Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and went on to write a Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine and several other nov-
well-received novel, The Namesake (2003), which was els that use a recurring set of characters and locations
shortly adapted to film in 2007. In her second collection in the manner of William Faulkner), James Welch (e.g.,
of stories, Unaccustomed Earth, released to widespread Winter in the Blood), Sherman Alexie (e.g., The Lone
commercial and critical success, Lahiri shifts focus and Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven), and poets Simon
treats the experiences of the second and third generation. Ortiz and Joy Harjo. The success of these authors has
Other notable Asian-American (but not immigrant) nov- brought renewed attention to earlier generations, includ-
elists include Amy Tan, best known for her novel, The ing Zitkala-Sa, John Joseph Mathews, D'Arcy McNickle
Joy Luck Club (1989), tracing the lives of four immigrant and Mourning Dove.
families brought together by the game of Mahjong, and More recently, Arab American literature, largely unno-
Korean American novelist Chang-Rae Lee, who has pub- ticed since the New York Pen League of the 1920s, has
lished Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft. Such po- become more prominent through the work of Diana Abu-
ets as Marilyn Chin and Li-Young Lee, Kimiko Hahn and Jaber, whose novels include Arabian Jazz and Crescent
Janice Mirikitani have also achieved prominence, as has and the memoir The Language of Baklava. Other impor-
playwright David Henry Hwang. Equally important has tant authors include Etel Adnan, Rabih Alameddine and
been the effort to recover earlier Asian American authors, poet Naomi Shihab Nye.
started by Frank Chin and his colleagues; this effort has
brought Sui Sin Far, Toshio Mori, Carlos Bulosan, John
Okada, Hisaye Yamamoto and others to prominence. 13 Nobel Prize in Literature win-
Latina/o literature also became important during this pe- ners (American authors)
riod, starting with acclaimed novels by Tomás Rivera
(...y no se lo tragó la tierra) and Rudolfo Anaya (Bless
Further information: Nobel Prize in Literature
Me, Ultima), and the emergence of Chicano theater
with Luis Valdez and Teatro Campesino. Latina writ-
ing became important thanks to authors such as Sandra
• 1930: Sinclair Lewis (novelist)
Cisneros, an icon of an emerging Chicano literature
whose 1984 bildungsroman The House on Mango Street • 1936: Eugene O'Neill (playwright)
is taught in schools across the United States, Denise
Chavez's The Last of the Menu Girls and Gloria An- • 1938: Pearl S. Buck (biographer and novelist)
zaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. • 1948: T. S. Eliot (poet and playwright)
Dominican-American author Junot Díaz, received the
• 1949: William Faulkner (novelist)
 15

• 1954: Ernest Hemingway (novelist) • Perry Miller: Puritan studies

• 1962: John Steinbeck (novelist) • Henry Nash Smith: founder of the “Myth and Sym-
bol School” of American criticism
• 1976: Saul Bellow (novelist)
• 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer (novelist, wrote in Yid- • Leo Marx: The Machine in the Garden (study of
dish) technology and culture)

• 1987: Joseph Brodsky (poet and essayist, wrote in • Leslie Fiedler: Love and Death in the American
English and Russian) Novel
• 1993: Toni Morrison (novelist) • Stanley Fish: Pragmatism

• Henry Louis Gates: African American literary the-

14 American literary awards ory

• Gerald Vizenor: Native American literary theory

See also: Category:American literary awards
• William Dean Howells: Literary realism

• American Academy of Arts and Letters • Stephen Greenblatt: New Historicism

• Pulitzer Prize (Fiction, Drama and Poetry, as well • Geoffrey Hartman: Yale school of deconstruction
as various non-fiction and journalist categories)
• John Crowe Ransom: New Criticism
• National Book Award (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry
and Young-Adult Fiction)
• Cleanth Brooks: New Criticism
• American Book Awards
• Kenneth Burke: Rhetoric studies
• PEN literary awards (multiple awards)
• Elaine Showalter: Feminist criticism
• United States Poet Laureate
• Sandra M. Gilbert: Feminist criticism
• Bollingen Prize
• Pushcart Prize • Susan Gubar: Feminist criticism

• O. Henry Award • J. Hillis Miller: Deconstruction

• Edward Said: Postcolonial criticism

15 Literary theory and criticism • Jonathan Culler: Critical theory, deconstruction

See also: Category:American literary critics • Judith Butler: Post-structuralist feminism

• Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Latina literary theory

• Edgar Allan Poe: Dark Romanticism, Short-Story
Theory • Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick: Queer theory

• T. S. Eliot: Modernism • Fredric Jameson: Marxist criticism

• Harold Bloom: Aestheticism

• Susan Sontag: Against Interpretation, On Photogra- 16 See also
phy
• John Updike: Literary realism/modernism and aes- • American Literature (academic discipline)
theticist critic
• Short story
• M. H. Abrams: The Mirror and the Lamp (study of
Romanticism) • Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Litera-
ture
• F. O. Matthiessen: originated the concept
"American Renaissance" • Highlighter
16 17 NOTES AND REFERENCES

16.1 Additional genres • Chicano literature

• Chicano poetry
• Detective fiction
• Puerto Rican literature
• Horror fiction
• List of Puerto Rican writers
• Nature writing • List of Cuban American writers
• Romance novel • List of Mexican American writers

• Science fiction and fantasy

• Western fiction 17 Notes and references
[1] Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Lit-
16.2 Regional and minority focuses in erature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.
American literature Print.

[2] Skipp, Francis E. American Literature, Barron’s Educa-

• Literature of New England
tional, 1992.
• Chicago literature [3] Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Black-
• Southern literature well, 2004.

[4] Parker, Patricia L. “Charlotte Temple by Susanna Row-

• Literature in Hawaii
son.” The English Journal. 65.1: (1976) 59-60. JSTOR.
• Texas literature Web. 1 March 2010.

• New Orleans in fiction [5] Schweitzer, Ivy. “Review.” Early American Literature.
23.2: (1988) 221-225. JSTOR. Web. 1 March 2010.
• Boston in fiction
[6] Hamilton, Kristie. “An Assault on the Will: Republican
• LGBT literature Virtue and the City in Hannah Webster Foster’s 'The Co-
quette'.” Early American Literature. 24.2: (1989) 135-
• Deaf American literature 151. JSTOR. Web. 1 March 2010

• American Catholic literature [7] Campbell, Donna M. “The Early American Novel: Intro-
ductory Notes.” Literary Movements. 14 July 2008. 1
• American literature in Spanish March 2010. http://www.wsu.edu/~{}campbelld/amlit/
earamnov.htm
Ethnic minority literature articles and lists
[8] Rutherford, Mildred. American Authors. Atlanta: The
Franklin Printing and Publishing Co., 1902.
• Armenian American literature
[9] Reynolds, Guy. “The Winning of the West: Washington
• African American literature Irving’s 'A Tour on the Prairies’.” The Yearbook of English
Studies. 34: (2004) 88-99. JSTOR. Web. 1 March 2010.
• List of African American writers
[10] Gura, Philip F. American Transcendentalism: A History.
• Jewish American literature New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 7–8. ISBN 978-0-
8090-3477-2
• List of Jewish American writers
[11] “A Brief Guide to the Fireside Poets” at Poets.org. Ac-
• List of Arab American writers cessed 10-07-2015
• List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Amer- [12] Hazel Hutchison, The War That Used Up Words: Amer-
icas ican Writers and the First World War (Yale University
Press, 2015)
• Native American Renaissance
[13] Noel Stock, The Life of Ezra Pound (1970)
• Asian American literature
[14] Hugh Kenner, The invisible poet: TS Eliot (1965).
• Chinese American literature
[15] Jeffrey Meyers, Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography (Harper-
• Korean American writers
Collins, 1994).
• List of Asian American writers
[16] Maxwell Geismar, American moderns, from rebellion to
• Hispanic American writers conformity (1958)
 17

[17] Keith Ferrell, Ernest Hemingway: The Search for Courage 18 Bibliography
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2014)
• New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A
[18] John T. Matthews, William Faulkner: seeing through the Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage by
South (Wiley, 2011).
Alpana Sharma Knippling (Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood, 1996)
[19] Kimball, Roger Existentialism, Semiotics and Iced Tea,
Review of Conversations with Walker Percy New York • Christol, Hélène; Mathé, Sylvie (1999). An intro-
Times, August 4, 1985, Accessed September 24, 2006 duction to american fiction. Paris: Editions Ellipses.
ISBN 9782729879129. OCLC 491010846.
[20] Kakutani, Michiko (January 12, 1996). “Seeking Salva-
tion On the Silver Screen”. The New York Times Books. • Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical
Retrieved December 3, 2009. Critical Sourcebook by Emmanuel S. Nelson (West-
port, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000)
[21] Groundbreaking Book: Life Studies by Robert Lowell
(1959) Accessed May 5, 2010 • Witschi, N.S. (2002). Traces of Gold: California’s
Natural Resources and the Claim to Realism in West-
[22] Bloom, Harold: How to Read and Why, page 269. Touch- ern American Literature. Tuscaloosa: University of
stone Press, 2000. Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-1117-3.

[23] “Nobel Prize Nobel Prize Award Ceremony Speech”. No-

belprize.org. 19 Aug 2010
19 External links
[24] “What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last
25 Years?". New York Times. May 21, 2006. Retrieved • Why a National Literature Cannot Flourish in the
December 4, 2009. United States of North America (1845) by Joseph
Rocchietti
[25] Bloom, Harold (June 15, 2009). “Harold Bloom on Blood
Meridian". A.V. Club. Retrieved March 3, 2010. • Ernest Hemingway Website

[26] Bloom, Harold (September 24, 2003). “Dumbing down

• Audio lectures on American Literature in
American readers”. The Boston Globe. Retrieved Decem- TheEnglishCollection.com (clickable timeline)
ber 4, 2009.
• A Student’s History of American Literature (1902) by
Edward Simonds
[27] “All-Time 100 Novels: The Complete List”. Time Maga-
zine. October 16, 2005. Retrieved December 4, 2009. • Electronic Texts in American Studies

[28] Grossman, Lev (August 12, 2010). “Jonathan Franzen: • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "American Litera-
Great American Novelist”. Time Magazine. Retrieved ture". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cam-
August 16, 2010. bridge University Press.

[29] Kakutani, Michiko (August 15, 2010). “A Family Full

of Unhappiness, Hoping for Transcendence”. New York
Times. Retrieved August 16, 2010.

[30] Tanenhaus, Sam (August 19, 2010). “Peace and War”.

New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2010.

[31] Kakutani, Michiko (2007-08-31). “In Vietnam: Stars and

Stripes, and Innocence Undone”. The New York Times.
Retrieved April 17, 2010.

[32] “2012 National Book Awards”. National Book Founda-

tion. November 14, 2012. Retrieved December 2, 2012.

[33] “Giannina Braschi”. National Book Festival. Library of

Congress. 2012. Retrieved February 17, 2015. 'Braschi:
one of the most revolutionary voices in Latin America to-
day'

[34] Ilan Stavans (2011). “Norton Anthology of Latino Liter-

ature”. Norton. Retrieved February 17, 2015.
18 20 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

20 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

20.1 Text
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WhisperToMe, Wik, Ed g2s, Bcorr, Sjorford, Bearcat, DavidA, Chrism, Flauto Dolce, Gidonb, LGagnon, DHN, Borislav, Wayland, Alan
Liefting, Kerttie, Anville, Jdavidb, Stevietheman, Manuel Anastácio, Utcursch, Andycjp, Lesgles, Joyous!, Trevor MacInnis, Jfpierce,
Freakofnurture, DanielCD, Discospinster, Vsmith, MeltBanana, Arthur Holland, Gronky, Bender235, ESkog, Jandrews, El C, Kwamik-
agami, Shanes, Zidel333, Nk, Pearle, Nsaa, Ricky81682, Calton, Hu, Snowolf, Wtmitchell, Mad Hatter, DeGabor, Novacatz, Sandover,
Woohookitty, CWH, Isnow, Zzyzx11, Cuchullain, BD2412, Noirish, Rjwilmsi, Koavf, Miserlou, MarnetteD, Ian Pitchford, SchuminWeb,
Nihiltres, SouthernNights, Elmer Clark, RexNL, Darlene4, Jefu, Bgwhite, The Rambling Man, Wavelength, Jeffpw, Todd Vierling, Phan-
tomsteve, RussBot, BTLizard, Velvetoneo, RandallJones, Tfine80, Chick Bowen, Welsh, Proyster, Rjensen, Jk1lee, Tony1, Zythe, Bota47,
Kelovy, Phgao, Mike Dillon, GraemeL, Wechselstrom, LeonardoRob0t, Katieh5584, TLSuda, Phl, GrinBot~enwiki, Sardanaphalus,
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bot, Mazeface, Audacity, KissFist, Sadads, CSWarren, Colonies Chris, George Ho, Tsca.bot, Egsan Bacon, OrphanBot, Jmlk17, Thrones,
Ryan Roos, Barney Hill, Krashlandon, Nareek, Diverman, IronGargoyle, Ckatz, Drinky Crow, TastyPoutine, Enentrup, Siruguri, Hu12,
OnBeyondZebrax, LadyofShalott, Dan1679, Switchercat, Peter1c, Wolfdog, ShelfSkewed, Outriggr (2006-2009), Kejood, Neelix, Bobnor-
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Arch dude, Midnightdreary, Mjs110, The Myotis, Pseudothyrum, Bongwarrior, VoABot II, Xn4, Florizel~enwiki, WODUP, Hifrom-
mike65, Schumi555, User A1, EstebanF, Glen, Grunge6910, FisherQueen, MartinBot, X02, StarWarsGirl, Redstar1976, SLY111, Huz-
zlet the bot, BigrTex, Karanacs, LordAnubisBOT, Pyrospirit, Vague darklord, Crazypaco, Shinobi.cl, Sdudah, Burzmali, Jevansen, Andy
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